Encompassing others: the magic of modernity in Melanesia

Abstract

[Extract] This is an ambitious book that offers us a theory of modernity in PNG spefically as it has developed among the Maring. Modernity as understood by Lipuma is not confined to some minor temporal reference, but is a definite process with a substantive content. This content is summarised in the early chapters that outline the concept of 'encompassment'. While encompassment might sound intriguingly Dumontian it refers us to issues many readers may already be familiar with. It involves 'those processes, at once historical and structural, by which the political economy of capitalism, the state (in colonial and national versions), internationalised Western culture and interstate organizations (like the World Bank) progressively and simultaneously subsume, enchant and engulf others' (p. 20).